Monday, September 29, 2008

Canadian Hacker, 'The Analyzer', Released on Bail - UPDATE

Israeli hacker Ehud Tenenbaum (aka "The Analyzer") has been released on $30,000 bail in Canada where he was arrested last month on suspicion of hacking into computers belonging to a financial services company.

The 29-year-old Tenenbaum is accused of hacking into computers belonging to Direct Cash Management of Calgary and increasing the balance on pre-paid debit cards to about CDN $3.5 million, then conspiring with others in Canada and around the world to withdraw the funds in December 2007 and January 2008. The culprits managed to steal CDN $1.8 million of that amount.

Tenenbaum was arrested with three other Canadians, 30-year-old Priscilla Mastrangelo, whom Tenenbaum has identified as his fiancee; 28-year-old Ralph Jean-Francois; and 33-year-old Sypros Xenoulis, said to be Tenenbaum's business partner.

According to the Calgary Herald, Mastrangelo is accused of withdrawing $32,082 in the scam, while Jean-Francois and Xenoulis took considerably less -- $6,585 and $1,001.

A decade ago when Tenenbaum was 19 years old, he hacked into unclassified computer systems belonging to NASA, the Pentagon, the Israeli parliament and others. He was arrested in 1998 along with several other Israelis and two California teens in one of the first high-profile hacker cases that made international news.